During BredaPhoto, the museum presents the work of Michael Wolf (DE 1954). In his book Informal solutions (2016), from which he drew for his exhibition for BredaPhoto, Michael Wolf describes his work as an ‘encyclopaedia of back-alley improvisations’. Among the ‘informal solutions’ he encountered in recent years in Hong Kong are self-made lounge corners, plants in unexpected places, a mop that seems to be part of the streetscape, and a mini-break held on a random spot. These are the small but clever interventions through which people carve out their little patch in the city. Wolf presents photographs and short videos, but also some of the objects he has collected throughout the years. Together they form an alternative roadmap through this metropolis.

Since his arrival in 1995, Hong Kong never stopped to fascinate photographer Michael Wolf.

For over twenty years Michael Wolf has captured the hyper-density of the city of Hong Kong through his large-scale photographs of its high-rise architecture (‘architecture of density’).

With his latest body of work, Wolf zooms into the beehive like structures and explores it’s less glamorous counter part; the back alleys. The back alleys, originally referred to as ‘scavenger lanes’, are not what would appeal to most urban dwellers. At best, one might rush through it, merely as a shortcut, trying to avoid the pungent smell of waste, while turning a blind eye to rats scurrying away. However these dark narrow lanes host a vast variety objects and activities as we learn through Wolf’s photography.

Viewing can be arranged on appointment with Sarah Greene at sarah@bluelotus-consultancy.com

June 25, 2016

Hong Kong Back Alley – Peperoni Books Pop-up store, Milan, Italy

24June – 22 July, 2016

In June, Micamera will host Peperoni Books, a passionate Berlin-based imprint founded and directed since 2004 by Hannes Wanderer. Born to parents who owned a printing company, Wanderer’s activities today include, besides publishing, also teaching and running a bookshop and a blog (25 books).

Together with the books, Micamera will host a little exhibition by Michael Wolf with works from the Hong Kong Back Alley series, showing a different, underground map of Hong Kong and its vernacular culture through alleyways and backyards, along with a selection of images of Hong Kong’s tall buildings as architectural patterns. Two screens will complete the installation. Both Wolf and Wanderer will be in Milan for the opening and will teach a 2-day-workshop together. The workshop will allow a limited number of participants to work on their photo / editorial project.

As part of the Photo Weekend Düsseldorf, Grisebach will host a double exhibition in its Düsseldorf showroom. On show will be works by Michael Wolf from his highly re- garded series Tokyo Compression as well as a selection of works by Seiichi Furuya, who documented the former GDR, East Germany, a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Grisebach
Bilker Strasse 4–6, 40213 Düsseldorf

February 25, 2016

Prague: DOX ‘The Soul of Money’

Feb-June 2016

THE SOUL OF MONEY multimedia exhibition project focuses on money as a phenomenon everybody is – willingly or unwillingly – part of. Through artworks and projects by numerous foreign and Czech artists, the project aims to explore some of the implications of the grand colonization of today‘s world through the current economic model.

DOX Centre for Contemporary Art
Poupetova 1, Prague 7

June 02, 2015

SHANGHAI: ‘Paris Rooftops’ solo by Michael Wolf at M97 Project Space

Shanghai

‘Paris Rooftops’

@M97 PROJECT SPACE

170 Yueyang Road No.1 Bldg 3

APRIL 25-MAY 31, 2015

M97 cordially invites you to the opening of Paris Rooftops, an exhibition of Michael Wolf’s newest body of work. Paris Rooftops is a continuation of Wolf’s life-long fascination with architecture and urban life, this time taking the viewer to Paris.

June 02, 2015

BOOK: ‘Hong Kong Umbrella’ by Michael Wolf and Lam Yik Fei

Hong Kong Umbrella
by Michael Wolf and Lam Yik Fei

The umbrella became the symbol of the Occupy Central Demonstrations in the fall of last year. In this book Wolf’s photographs of umbrellas used in back alleys are juxtaposed with Fei’s photographs of umbrellas used during the demonstrations.

The book will be available from Michael Wolf’s studio during ‘Chai Wan Mei’.

Forty nine elements as seen in one photograph on a Hong Kong back alley by Michael Wolf are neatly placed in a 10 square foot gallery space hereby challenging the notion of representation and the documentary value of the photograph.